Laser manipulation of iron for nanofabrication

We fabricate iron nanolines by depositing an atomic beam of iron through a far-off resonant laser standing wave (SW) onto a glass-ceramic substrate. The laser SW is tuned 200 MHz above the D-5(4)-->F-5(5)o Fe-56 transition at a vacuum wavelength of 372.099 nm. The resulting nanolines exhibit a period of 186 nm, a height above the background of 8 nm and a full width at half maximum of 95 nm. These nanostructures cover a surface area of similar or equal to1.6x0.4 mm(2), corresponding to similar or equal to8600 iron lines with a length of similar or equal to400 mum. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.